All articles by Benny Crick – Page 3
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Reviews
Monsieur Batignole
Dir: Gerard Jugnot. 2002. France. 100mins.Only months after the commercial failure of Laissez Passer, Bertrand Tavernier's ambitious saga about the French film industry under the German Occupation, comes this blandly conventional feelgood comedy-drama. Gerard Jugnot's tale about an ordinary Parisian's moral resistance to wartime anti-Semitism is currently doing brisk business ...
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Reviews
Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra
Dir: Alain Chabat. France. 2001. 107mins.Mission Cleopatra has come, been seen and conquered. In a mere six weeks, the record-setting $42m blockbuster comedy has racked up 12.9m admissions ($61.9m) in France from 898 sites, and should replace 1992 Gaumont time-warp comedy Les Visiteurs as the second top-grossing French film of ...
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Reviews
Eight Women (Huit Femmes)
Dir: Francois Ozon. France. 2002. 103mins.Clearly not one to be stuffed into a stylistic straitjacket, the erratic, highly talented Francois Ozon has flamboyant fun with Eight Women (Huit Femmes), an old-fashioned Agatha Christie-ish whodunnit made over as high camp with songs and an all-female cast. Although it will no ...
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Reviews
Tanguy
Dir: Etienne Chatilliez. France. 2001. 108 mins.With more than 3.6 million admissions after eight weeks - and still going strong - Tanguy confirms director Etienne Chatiliez as one of France's surefire comedy bets, despite an unprolific output (four features in 12 years, beginning with the 1988 smash Life Is A ...
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Reviews
Une Hirondelle A Fait Le Printemps
Dir: Christian Carion. France. 103mins.While many French films deal with provincials who seek love and fortune in the big city (ie Paris), first-time director Christian Carion's Une Hirondelle A Fait Le Printemps takes the reverse tack: a young city-slicker who abandons a successful career to live off the land. ...
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Reviews
Chaos
Dir: Coline Serreau. France. 110mins.If there's one occupational hazard that seems to afflict comic artists at some point in their careers, it's the desire to be taken seriously and the temptation to dispense with laughter as a medium. This is what has now happened to writer-director Coline Serreau, who has ...
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Reviews
Vidocq
Dir: Pitof. France. 100 mins.Last season it was Brotherhood Of The Wolf, a prototype for a new kind of European popular cinema, that attempted to makeover a French costume drama with the idiomatic layering of genre set-pieces (martial arts action movie, monster movie, etc.). This season we get Vidocq, a ...
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Reviews
Blame It On Voltaire
Dir: Abdellatif Kechiche. France.130mins.Honoured as the best first film atlast year's Venice Film Festival, Blame It On Voltaire is a flawed butaffecting account of an illegal immigrant's adventures in Paris. Though localfilms by and about North Africans (notably Algerians) have long been part ofthe French film scene, first-time writer-director Kechiche ...
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Reviews
Brotherhood Of The Wolf
Dir: Cristophe Gans. France. 2001. 143mins.Hailed as the prototype for a new genre-bending kind of popular European cinema, Brotherhood Of The Wolf is a crazy quilt of historical romance, horror movie, frontier saga, conspiracy thriller and martial arts actioner. One can only admire the sheer chutzpah of writer-director Christophe Gans, ...
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Reviews
Mortal Transfer
Screened at Berlin (Panorama). Dir: Jean-Jacques Beineix. France-Germany. 2000. 122mins.Marking Jean-Jacques Beineix's return to theatrical features after an eight-year absence, Mortal Transfer is a disappointingly minor excursion into black comedy-cum-psycho-thriller territory. Taken at its most undemanding level of entertainment, the film's macabre farce and its cast of eccentrics are mildly ...
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Reviews
The Secret
Dir: Virginie Wagon. France. 2000. 107mins.Prod cos: Productions Bagheera, France 3 Cinema, Diaphana Films. Int'l sales: Mercure Distribution, tel: (33) 1 44 108 844. Exec prod: Francois Marquis. Scr: Wagon, Erick Zonca. DoP: Jean-Marc Fabre. Ed: Yannick Kergoat. Prod des: Brigitte Brassart. Sound: Ludovic Henault, Stephane Thiebaut. Cost des: Brigitte ...
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Reviews
The Captive (La Captive)
Dir: Chantal Akerman. France. 108 mins.Prod cos: Gemini Films - Arte France Cinema. Int'l sales: Gemini Films. Exec producer: Paolo Branco. Scr: Akerman and Eric de Kuyper, freely inspired by Marcel Proust's La Prisonniere. DoP: Sabine Lancelin. Ed: Claire Atherton. Prod des: Christian Marti. Main cast: Stanislas Merhar, Sylvie Testud, ...
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Reviews
The Crimson Rivers (Les Rivieres Pourpres)
Dir: Mathieu Kassovitz. France. 105mins.Prod cos: Legende Entreprises, Gaumont, TF1 Productions in association with StudioCanal. Int'l sales: Gaumont, tel: (33) 1 46 43 2000. Domestic dist: GBVI. Exec prod: Alain Goldman. Scr: Mathieu Kassovitz and Jean-Christophe Grange, based on Grange's novel. DoP: Thierry Arbogast. Ed: Maryline Monthieu. Prod des: Thierry ...
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